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Cyber bullying & Suicide

The_Boss_Giygas

I. F.E.E.L. G.O.O.D.
Just saw the news about 2 gay kids killing themselves because of cyber bullying. Basically I just want to hear your say on this.

Is cyberbullying a big enough deal that you need to kill yourself for it?
Are people too sensitive or is cyberbullying really that bad?
 
People are too sensitive about it.

If you get trolled, counter it by filling your opponent's inbox with horse porn or something. If it involves Facebook just block them. Its just the internet. Maybe its just me, but I never was emotionally worked up about anything online.
 

CSolarstorm

New spicy version
Well, to the people who say, "get over it", "natural selection killed them" and "it's just the internet", these kinds of callous sentiments are actually a big sign that there is bullying present on the internet. Whether or not people should feel bad about this bullying or take it seriously, well, the point is not whether you think it's serious, the point is, the person who committed suicide thought it was serious.

When I come here on SPPF I do take a bit of personal investment in what I say to people and people say back to me. I try to be polite and generous and in return when people are rude toward me I'm actually visibly offended in real life. There was actually one day when I got in an internet fight with a member just by asking him to be polite, and he asked me if I was on medication. I in fact, was, pain medication, and several others, and I was quite sensitive about it, and I was a little hurt by the whole fiasco. On top of many other things in real life it actually put me in a bad mood that day. Course, I learned since then to separate myself.

If you combine someone who takes the internet just as seriously as real social interaction, and the mob/snowball effect of people getting together and harrassing someone, you get a real phenomenon. Especially since it's so easy to start a meme and flame online. And you have the advantage of saying it with pictures, which is even a more hurtful way of bullying.

Plus, there are worse bullies online that sincere people don't understand. The opposite of a sincere (maybe naive) person who takes personal investment in what's online is a cynical troll who takes advantage of anonymity to act cruel, thinking it's just like a game to ruin their online experience, when in the other person's reality, their innocent cruelty is actually felt quite severely. So, it may be a case of bullying, but there is some misunderstanding involved sometimes and it's hard to actually place blame/prosecute someone.
 

Profesco

gone gently
People are too sensitive about it.

If you get trolled, counter it by filling your opponent's inbox with horse porn or something. If it involves Facebook just block them. Its just the internet. Maybe its just me, but I never was emotionally worked up about anything online.

Eye for an eye doesn't work. You can't exist in a society where the code of action is to respond to jerks by being a jerk; otherwise everyone's a jerk and coexistence breaks down. If you're not doing that which is right, you're doing that which is wrong. And that means you're wrong.

People do not need to troll and/or bully, and supporting it is simply supporting the act of harming innocent persons. Trolling and bullying are indefensible behaviors.


That said, I don't think cyberbullying is a big enough deal to commit suicide over. But people do have emotional problems, and the only person qualified to assign a value to how hurt someone is by any disparagement is the person being hurt.
 
People who even bother to cyber bully are usually the ones who are losers IRL and have no friends, and can't stand up for themselves, so they act all mean on the internet as an attempt to make themselves feel better ..which is pretty pathetic since, you know, it's the internet.

But when a person would actually go so far as to kill themselves from being bullied on the internet ..not to sound heartless or anything, but something would have made them commit suicide eventually in life. If you can't get through some retard saying crap over the internet about you ..then you probably won't be able to get through most things in life.

That being said, you shouldn't get that worked up over the bullying ..but bullying someone over the internet is the more pathetic thing you can do, and just proves you probably don't have much confidence outside, because you are most likely the one who actually gets bullied to some degree IRL.
 

AzukanAsimbu

Petal Paladin
Suicide is pretty much an extreme "crossing the Rubicon" way of getting attention. The bullyers probably, no wait, DO have some problems which makes them feel weak so they take it out on others. But you should'nt commit suicide, thats just silly. Suicide is being glamourized alot too....
 

Megaton666

Swampert Trainer
Cyber -bullying (or Trolling, as it's really called) is no big deal. it's usually just a result of someone's lack of life. these kids just took trolling too seriously.
 

J.T.

ಠ_ಠ
Attitudes like "wow what a wuss those kids are it's just the internet grow a spine" and **** like that are probably part of the reason they committed suicide in the first place, so congratulations on that, first of all. Typically, people who are driven to suicide by cyberbullying had other problems going on in their life aside from the cyberbullying - like being bullied in real life, or parental problems, or whatever. I really doubt people who commit suicide do it just because someone on the internet was really mean to them. It's usually just the metaphorical straw that broke the camel's back. Also, I don't think many of you know what kind of things could constitute cyberbullying. With sites like Facebook, people can post compromising videos, spread vicious rumors, unpleasant stuff like that. Again, probably not worth killing yourself over, but it's not always a matter of calling someone names.

And yeah, we can sit here and argue over whether people should commit suicide over mean things said on the Internet (and I think that would be a pretty one-sided debate), but how about we focus on the fact that they do, and just, you know, stop cyberbullying. I think that's a much better idea, dunno about you.
 

Noheart

The Abysswalker
If you kill yourself over what someone told you on the internet, you probably should have.

This.

People need to stop giving a sh*t. Especially about stupid sh*t over the internet. "Cyber bullying" is a carebear term. If people are making fun of you, either don't care or don't give them something to make fun of.

If kids actually kill themselves over it, they wouldn't survive the real world anyway.
 

The Director

Ancient Trainer
Although their are loads of ways to counter cyber bullying not everyone knows them one, two parents do need to instill self confidence and character in a child so that verbal bullying doesn't have as much of an effect, this isn't just for bullying but is pretty much a requirement of life. The strong are those unaffected by verbal, the weak are those who bully with verbal and the weakest are the ones who can't ride above it.
I know that might seem harsh but life is harsh its not going to pull its punches so you got to be ready. Its you VS life. Of course you don't have to do the fight alone.
But i would also agree I would find it highly unusual that cyber bullying was the ONLY cause for suicide.
 

GhostAnime

Searching for her...
I have two separate viewpoints.

Number one, cyber-bullying isn't really a big deal and even if it was, what are you going to do about it? Get Internet police? The best you can do is just teach people to ignore and speak to people they are comfortable with. That's all you can do. Unlike real bullying, you can actually get away from some annoying user.

In the cases of 4chan and hackers, that's different. I actually wish that type of cyber-bullying would stop, but so far it's only happened to people who asked for it. If this happens you're probably better off telling authorities.

.. As for the emotional side, I gotta say that while the Internet is a huge anonymous place where you can't get punished for saying mean things, does that mean we have to say them for no reason? I'll admit, life is harsh, but does it have to be harsh? This isn't about cyber-bullying in itself but rather just common courtesy. This isn't really something we can change but it's still something I wish for occasionally. Just an environment where nobody just randomly insults someone unless they honestly deserve it. Give neutral respect to everyone you meet and speak with until they look like a fool, then you can go on about calling them stupid or whatever.
 
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MugoUrth

Bibarel's adorable.
Most of the people who are the ridicule of Cyber Bullying who say they will commit suicide are usually lairs. But of coarse the Cyber Bullies themselves are heartless jerks. I don't think it's that serious, though.
 

Tyrant Tar

Well-Known Member
Unlike real bullying, you can actually get away from some annoying user.
Not always. Cyber-bullying isn't limited to your typical internet troll. Some will make whole sites dedicated to making fun of the victim, or pretending to be the victim and act like a jerk so everyone will hate said victim, or sending constant texts/e-mails --which are essentially ALWAYS hurting the victim, not just at school.
And, as this thread shows, many people just don't understand how bad it can get, much less actually help those victims.
 

Steelers_Fan

hiding in your mind
It hurts, but some people are oversensitive.

Most is just minor annoyance but in my school you can get suspended for a calender year and your internet revoked until you graduate if they find out you've been cyber bullying.

THe internet is an anonymous place for people to do this kind of stuff, its not going to go away so we should just take it in stride, and laugh at the people who think they really have power over the internet to control people.
 

Penguinist Trainer

Well-Known Member
People are not being over sensitive about cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is just as bad as regular bullying, because with cyber bullying, the bullies can remain anonymous. who do you turn to when you don't know who is the one attacking you?

furthermore, there is a huge difference between calling someone names over the internet and spreading explicit pics/video of the person over the internet.

i've never had the opportunity to be bullied over the internet, but i was a victim of bullying in real life, and there have been times where i was close to making the decision to end it. at least with real life bullying, you have the chance to find a support network of people who can help you get through it.

in the case of the internet though, we all know that once something is out there, there is no taking it back. the problem with anonymity is people can show their true selves and some people are just down right nasty on the inside.

cyber bullying is a serious problem because people think they can get away with it. for example, think of some of the things users of these forums will say to new members who make a mistake. i've seen some pretty nasty name calling. now imagine that this was a person you know and you were out to make them as miserable as possible. it starts with a name and then graduates to harassment and bullying.

people can be pretty cruel when they hide behind a computer screen.




http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101001/ap_on_re_us/us_student_taped_sex


here's the story for people who think this is about harmless name-calling.
 
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Willow's Tara

The Bewitched
I agree with JT and Sunny, and PT- Just because this is the internet doesn't mean people don't have feelings, there is still a person behind that screen (And if someone like a mod or an higher authority was the one doing it then that's worse, the person could look up to them or think they may be right. Not to mention if it's constant they wouldn't feel like they could speak up in fear of getting attacked and ganged by half of the forum, chat, site etc).

Do I get offended if someone calls me a bad name? Yes because people still have feelings and cyber bullying can just be bad as bullying in real life. Sure sucide may just be a bit too far but many come to the internet or play an online game (Where that can very bad) to escape reality, to escape the bullying and other crap in real life, then just have to be cyber bullied over the internet.

Of course I just strike back or ignore the person completely if it happens to me, but not everyone can defend themselves internet or not. If it was real life I probably be too scared to do anything because well I prefer not to be beaten up.
 

Jb

Tsun in the streets
Sh/t happends, but still not a reason to kill youself over, and i notice this kind of thing happening to alot of gay people, some guy from my college killed himself Here because his roomate broadcasted him in a "Gay Encounter" with another man, over the internet, the guy took his ipod and jumped of the bridge.
 

Fused

Shun the nonbeliever
First off, Boss set-up a bad context. The two kids who he is referring too faced something beyond cyber bullying.

In September alone, there were 5 reported cases of LGBT kids committing suicide, with a 6th getting a broken arm for appearing gay.

One of the students I think being referred to is Tyler Clementi - WHO WAS VIDEOTAPED HAVING SEX WITH A MAN AND BROADCAST LIVE ON THE INTERNET WITHOUT HIS KNOWLEDGE. Now I don't know about you, but when I have sex, the only people who I care to know about it are me and the other person. I don't need everyone on my ****in Twitter watching me have sex. So I think that goes beyond cyber-bullying.

That's actually the only case of cyber-bullying I know of, unless you count Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvel's actions against University of Michigan Ann Arbor student Chris Armstrong (which include calling Armstrong a racists and recruiting elitist) as bullying, which I think you might.

But other cases happened in real life and real time: a male cheerleader had his arm broken, a 13 year turned a gun on himself, another teen died after ten days on life support after a hanging attempt, another hung himself in a barn, and another in his college dorm room.

So, let's just go into this with clear context before all of you go "get the **** over it." They weren't just cyber-bullied - they were completely ridiculed by peers, abandoned by their teachers, etc. IN REAL LIFE. If that is being oversensitive, then dogs are born with ****ing neon green skin.

I personally am a fan of not caring. I couldn't give two ****s what you want to call me, or what lies you want to spread about me, because I have friends who support me and who will defend me.

It sounds like these kids had shitty support.

I can turn my back to bullies, but I cannot just expect everyone else to as well. Not everyone has my personality, so not everyone can cope with things like I do. Cyber bullying I think goes beyond trolling as bullying usually denotes the intent to disturb while trolling is really just for shits and giggles.

Basically, everyone who said "Get over it" has no idea to what lengths cyber-bullies can go to demean and ruin someone's life and security and self-worth. If real-life bullying is a problem, then any kind of bullying is a problem. The intent to disturb someone's peace of mind and security and self-worth is hardly something to say "get the **** over pussy" at.
 

TheHauntedOne

evil tofu!!!
I think any kind of bullying can lead someone to want to kill themself. Cyber bullying especially, being as though most kids and teens spend tremendous amounts of time on the net.

Either way it's very tragic when anyone takes their own life because of asshats on the internet.
 
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